How Should You Interview Your Replacement? 31
legLess asks: "I've been the Alpha Geek at a 50-person firm for 4 years, and now I'm leaving. The firm didn't have a real IT person before me (they'd only had a network for 6 months), but they absolutely need to hire one now. I'm going to need to be present for the interview, and I'm going to have to ask the tough questions, because nobody else here can. But I've never interviewed anyone before, and I've done very little interviewing myself. What's the best approach?" I'm sure quite a few of you have been in this position before. What help can you offer for those folks who may soon find themselves in this position?
"It won't be too hard to tell if someone's a good fit, personality-wise, but what about skills? Decision-making? Reaction in a crisis? I dislike the aggressive, confrontational style, and I believe it's counter-productive. I don't want to skirt concrete technical issues because we must be sure the person's qualified. OTOH, I don't want to give someone a written examination or stage a bunch of fake system emergencies to see how he or she performs. Do you have a stock list of questions? (e.g. What is the last mistake you have made? How did you solve the problem and what did you learn?) What's been successful for you (on either side of the desk), and what's failed?"
Why do you care? (Score:2)
Remember you part of the job, let others do theirs (Score:4)
Your job is technical. It is up to HR to look at someone and say "They may be good, but they are really here as a theif/spy." It is up to your boss to figgure out if the new guy's style will fit in with the rest of the company. You are not trained in doing their job and should not try to do it. You are an expert in technical issues, they are an expert in people issues. Don't take their job from them, as they are not taking your job from you.
Your job is to assess technical knowlege. He should be asking the questions. Since you are leaving make it clear! Hint strongly that this interview could easially be the guys last chance to figgure out how the system is run. That is when he starts he will get a slip of paper (that you wrote just before you left) with the root password(s), nobody else in the company will know anything abouyt the comptuers. The right guy will respond by grilling you to get all the details. Look for things like "I would have done y instead", but some people are shy about criticising so that might not happen even though it is good.
Have your boss get a non-disclousre if needed so you can take the canidate on a tour of the machine rooms and wiring closets. Ideally you can spend cpend a couple hours doing an overview. (Use judgement, any canidate that is obviously unqualified shouldn't waste your time, but your replacement will appreciate the time spent showing him around. You will appreciate not getting a personal call next month asking questions about the system.
Interviews are a two way process, not only is the company assessing the canidate, but the canidate is assessing the company. You are the expert on the company and the job. Be more prepared to answer questions then ask them!
The EASY Answer (Score:3)
Don't have one? Throw them out.
Then ask for their karma. Then apply the simple formula: R = (1,000,000 - UserID) + Karma*20000.
Whoever has the largest R value is your perfect candidate!
(that was a joke, in case you couldn't tell).
Not a good idea (but some hints anyway) (Score:3)
However, assuming that you'll have to do it anyway...
Technical questions about particular technologies are easy, I'm sure you can manage that. (Just make sure you know the answer and can tell if they're bluffing!)
More important is to test their problem solving skills and their 'fit' into the companies culture, but that's also more difficult. Putting them on the spot might not be a good idea -- we all get nervous -- so you need to ask stuff about what they've done. Ask them about their current job, problems they've had and how they solved them. If you focus in on enough details you can find out if they're making stuff up.
It's also important not to ask about hypothetic situations (unless there's no alternative). Would they do what they say, or is that just what they think you want to hear?
Re:Why not? (Score:1)
Speaking from experience, I get very turned off my companies that ask me to do too much for an interview.
Re:Why do you care? (Score:1)
Re:My suggestions... (Score:2)
So please don't anybody come yelling at me for claiming to be irreplaceable. It's all a matter of how you look at it.
My suggestions... (Score:4)
"Chase him down a rathole." If every answer sounds perfect, go depth-first on him and keep getting more specific until you can get him to say "I don't know. I would have to look that up or ask somebody." People who refuse to admit that they don't know something are usually not great hires.
Figure out what you think your skills are that AREN'T technical. Good sense of humor? Casual attitude? Do you walk around and visit people alot, and keep morale high? Find out if he's got similar skills. One thing I've always thought to be true is that if it comes down only to the technical, then plenty of people could fill my role, and that it's the extras that a given person brings to the table that make him most valuable.
Realize that hiring your own replacement is something of an oxymoron. I personally look at jobs by saying "I will convince these people that I am the exact person they need for this role. I want them to throw away that paper that says 5 years java, 3 years unix, masters degree, blah blah and say wow, this is the exact guy we need." If I succeed, then there is no way that I could hire my replacement, short of convincing them that I am no longer the right person for the job anyway, and that this new guy is better. That's a weird way to approach it, I know, but it all depends on how confident you are in your position there. If you really believe that you contributed something unique to the place, then there's no shame in acknowledging that it can't be replaced.
For the record I was asked to do something similar, once, and write down the requirements that they should look for in my replacement. I couldn't do it. It's hard.
Re:Why not? (Score:1)
>analogy, when I go into a store and by
>cigarettes or beer, I don't mind being carded. I
>know I am old enough and have proof of such. The
>same applies here. I don't mind taking an exam
>to prove my ability to perform the job function.
>I have seen too many people hired into jobs that
> aren't cabable of doing so.
I tend to come to different conclusions on this, using fairly similiar reasoning.
I DO mind being carded. I personally consider any age-based legal limitation completely arbitrary, and discriminatory. I feel that by enforcing this regulation, the shopkeeper is through his or her very actions supporting the notion that the it is the goverment's perogative to efforce rules that prevent me from making my own decision about potential health hazards. I also feel that being challenged for an ID is a personal affront to my own credibility, that despite having had a birthday party ever year for the past twenty-seven years, that I cannot be trusted to accurately represent my age and thus must provide corroborating evidence.
On the other hand, I find that qualifications for, or a test for, an interview or position perfectly acceptable. To do a specific job requires specific skills, and those your ability to perform those skills (unlike your age) IS directly related to your ability to perform the tasks. I am also entering into the interviewing-relationship willingly with a private company, rather than having such a challenge presented to me without choice due to a government regulation.
--craig
A good way to start off... (Score:2)
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Re:Does anyone give *practical* tests? (Score:1)
Please don't take this offensively, but I think you're lying. Any Slashdotter could tell you fixing NT requires at least a reboot -- there's 10 minutes right there. If you go through "process of elimination" that's more reboots.
:-)
-sid
Re:My suggestions... (Score:2)
I work for a small town as the sysadmin for town hall, but I do a lot of work in the schools as well. Recently, the elementary school's sysadmin left for a start-up communications company (I'm sitting at her old desk right now, actually). We ran into a small problem when trying to figure out who to hire in her place, though -- exactly what are we replacing?
Due to some general disorganization by the management here, instead of focusing on more specific tasks, each of the sysadmins here have a building (town hall, high school, middle school, elementary school) where they're expected to take care of the whole thing. We've sortof formed our own sub-positions -- I'm good with UNIX and the hardware, Jeff does networking, Mary does vendor relations, and Katy (the one who left) was great with the software. However, instead of hiring someone to be, essentially, a software techie, we needed to find someone who could be all four.
This made it tough to find a replacement, because we kept taking the approach, "What did Katy do? Now let's hire someone to do that." Well, needless to say, we can't do that. You can't ever find a person to replace the old guy. Instead, you need to find a person who can fit in the position.
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Stump Them (Score:1)
Speaking as a candidate... (Score:1)
A candidate who is enthused about the interview, and who appears to pursue your questions as if each one were an opportunity to demonstrate his/her talent will probably be the same way on the job.
As a candidate myself, I would say to employers: please ask some questions that are actually relevant to the skills you are hiring for! I can't tell you how many interviews I've been to where nothing computer related was ever brought up. Here are the questions every employer has asked me thus far:
- Do you work well in teams?
- What is your greatest failure/accomplishment?
- Give an example of a situation in which you had to deal with a very irate/irrational/stupid coworker/client/customer. What did you do?
- What is the most difficult problem you've had to solve, and what did you do?
Anyone who has been to more than one interview will simply answer those questions with canned responses. That's what I do, and then I try to move on to the more interesting topics. What do you expect someone to say? "Well, Mr. Interviewer, Sir, I sincerely despise other humans. If hired, I would request to be placed in a windowless room with a single hanging lightbulb."If the employer never asks me any directed questions about the type of work I'd be doing, or my skills, I become very suspicious, and begin to consider working for someone else instead.
We work/study for years to get to the point where we are qualified for a position, and we like to think that our knowledge is appreciated. I suppose some employers assume that a degree or experience means that you know your stuff, but any true geek will feel as if he/she has gone well beyond the calling of education or previous work experience, and will jump at the opportunity to prove this. So please, in addition to the standard questions, ask some questions that actually get to the meat of the job. The good candidates will appreciate it, and it will make it easier to distinguish them from those who are just along for the ride.
Re:Why not? (Score:1)
Wouldn't it be preferable to have more interaction with the potential employee? Certainly we can find a more professional way to interview potential employees.
"What kind of problems have you had in the past that have really stumped you?" and "What was your approach to solving it?"
"If you had a choice, which would it be?"
"Windows 98 ME or Windows 2000?"
"Windows 2000 or MacOS 9?"
"MacOS or BeOS?"
"anal or vaginal?"
I am sure these questions would help you get a feel for your applicant.
Re:Why do you care? (Score:3)
I have also been in a position where I was one of the first in an organization to "get it" and be qualified to make serious changes to the way a place operates. For five years or so, I and one of my close friends, worked at refining the way the place worked. New cables, new systems, new protocols, all manner of stuff. And, true, he was even more influential than I was. But this place is no longer one where anybody can walk in and feel at ease. It's a professional atmosphere now.
So, why should we care if and when we both walk away for good? Precisely because of those years we spent building the place up. I wouldn't feel happy at all knowing that all our hard work went to shit in far less time than it took to make it right.
So, that's why you should care about who takes over for you - especially if you give a damn about what you do in the first place.
One pice of advice. (Score:1)
By offering a trial period your telling the potential employee that you don't really trust your own judgment.
The important part (Score:1)
Does anyone give *practical* tests? (Score:2)
Practical, under pressure tests are the only real way of weeding out the capable from the incapable. A really good test would be to give someone a broken system using an OS variant or piece of software they'd never seen before, and ask them to fix it. Give them a PC with web. Most will panic, others will chose options at random, hoping things will work, but some will tackle it laterally, using whatever resources are available, performing web-searches and .
I've had to do things like this under pressure. I once was sent to a customer to fix a number of things, one of which was some obscure NT backup software which wouldn't backup. I didn't even have any practical experience of NT at the time. By a process of elmination I discovered the the cause of the fault and fixed it in around 10 minutes - the customer had had the problem for months.
I also attended a training course where we were given servers that had been broken in about 5 different ways (missing executables, corrupted data files etc) and was expected to get everything working ASAP, without resorting to a full system restore from OS media and data backup. A really nasty test, but I was the only one to pass it with flying colours.
Find out if they even know what they *did*. (Score:3)
There was a guy who had worked at a company which did mail and something else in India... I asked him what port SMTP was... he didn't know. He had Oracle on his resume... so I tried to get him to give some details... it took 20 minutes to get him to admit that they had DBAs who did the actual work *and* made sure the processes were running, and all he did was make sure that an app which used the Oracle stayed running.
I interviewed a guy who worked exclusively on DNS for three months and he didn't know what port it used... and stared at me blankly when I asked.
I interviewed another guy who called himself a UNIX sysadmin and was going for a Senior Systems Engineer position, but he didn't know what to do if the root password was lost/forgotten on a Solaris box.
WHAT!?!
Insist upon an honest self-evaluation, and be ready to call them on the honesty...
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Find the obvious, but that which people don't worry about when they play with something at home. Any schmo can run NT/2K at home and set up a PDC, printer and file shares, etc.
You don't need someone who has done everything... you're unlikely to find one of those without paying boatloads... you want someone who has done enough to be comfortable and know the basics without thinking, and can figure it out with anything else.
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When I was being interviewed for my first computer-related position, as a Cluster Consultant (TM) for the labs at Carnegie Mellon, when they asked how I'd handle a question on XYZ (which I'd never touched), I answered that I'd grab the manual and walk back to the user's station with them and work through it with them.
When I later got to the point where I was able to read the post-interview discussions on the ACS bulletin board, I found out how much they'd thought that it meant that the first thing I said was that I'd grab the manual.
Nobody should be expected to be infallible or omniscient. After a certain amount of knowledge, it's the approach which counts.
-Nev
Why not? (Score:1)
Why not? I have found in my experience, as both the interviewer and the interviewee, that written examinations are very beneficial. Make a 40-50 question test and have each potential candidate take it. Of course, your decision should not be based solely on the outcome of this exam, but it should weigh rather heavily.
I would also suggest that once you whittle your list down to 2-4 candidates, give them a "lab". Present them with 4 or 5 machines and a list of specs. I.e., you need to set up a pdc and a bdc with a file server with the domain name of blah, etc. What better way to figure out who can really do the job? I've seen lots of people that can talk the talk but can't actually walk the walk.
Re:Why not? (Score:1)
'What kind of problems have you had in the past that have really stumped you?" and "What was your approach to solving it?" '
'"Windows 98 ME or Windows 2000?" '
Do these questions really tell you if someone is qualified for said position? No. Sure they can give you a feel for that person's social engineering skills, but not much beyond that.
I do advocate having interaction with the potential employee, but just remember that there are plenty of bullshit artists out there. Also, remember, there are plenty of highly skilled individuals out there that don't have a good social interaction skill. My best employee rarely interacts with others, and when he does you can tell he is a little put off. But, he damn sure gets his job done correctly.
Asking questions at an interview (Score:1)
The suggestion is to give the person a job say the CEO's printer is not working and she needs it to print out a doucment that has to go out in an hour or so.
While the candidate is trying to fix the printer give her a call on the phone and present another problem say the accounting department has been cut off from accessing the server and the whole department is not able to work.
See how the candidate responds under this kind of pressure and you can select a likely replacement.
Like as said earlier I read this either somewhere else on slashdot/kuro5hin and credit should go to the person who suggested this nice idea
Let's play 20-questions (but don't use them all) (Score:1)
Some things we do:
Let HR/Management do the initial screening for personality and other HR issues. Schedule another interview for the prospect to meet the techies.
During the second interview. Allow him/her plenty of time to do their own talking. Show them some aspects of your environment. Give them the opportunity to see what kinds of things you do. (There may be security issues for some sites)
We feel this gives both parties to explore each others expertise/knowledge. We ask two or three spot questions relevant to our environment but at times we feel we don't have to based on how the casual conversation went.
This will also allow you to see how well the prospect will fit within the team personality wise.
Not all of this may apply to your situation, but I hope it's somewhat useful.
Re:Asking questions at an interview (Score:1)
"Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto"
(I am a man: nothing human is alien to me)
take it easy.. (Score:3)
wow, I'm optimistic today.
Re:Asking questions at an interview (Score:1)
"Where is the server?"
"What's the CEO's password?"
"Where is the CEO?"
"Why is this person in my way?"
See, since I don't know the network at all, I can manipulate you into fixing it for me, and that skill alone is worth hiring me for!!
Re:Why not? (Score:1)
"Why do you think the guy left in the first place?"
would be probably the second question I would ask.
Try Behavioral-Style Interview (Score:1)
To give a very general example:
Do you work well in a customer-service oriented environment, and can you give us some examples from your last position?
Or on a more technical level:
What was the biggest innovation you made in your last job?
What kind of technical challenges did you face in your last position, and how did you overcome them?
These can of course be even more specifically tailored, but they should leave enough room for any qualified candidate to be able to tell you about their past actions and experience. (We are assuming an initial screening for the technical requirements of the job ahead of time -- either at the beginning or in a separate interview.) If chosen carefully, this kind of strategy will give you a good picture of the candidate both personally and technically. The open-ended nature of the questions may bring out strengths and weekness you would never have anticipated.
Not that hard.. (Score:1)
What you don't necessarily need is to know their exact technical skills at the moment. Most effective people in the computer field are able to injest massive quantities of information and regurgitate the useful parts to solve a problem.
What you need to do is to know how much they can learn. Which means that you pick something off of their resume that you know very well and give them some hard questions on that, even if it's not a required job skill. They have to have learned that skill somewhere, and how well they learned that will determine how well they will learn everything else. If they evade questions on something that they claim to know well, they aren't very bright.
Theroetcial questions and logic problems are all fine and good, but if your interviewee is out of college, they generally will have seen any problems that you could think up.
You want to make sure that they have the skills elsewhere, so that they can at least land with their feet on the ground, but..
Ask them about their greatest hack. It'll be an interesting story and it will give you an idea of their personality.
Re:My suggestions... (Score:1)
Well... That's one way of looking at it. The other way is this: as soon as I walk into a new job, I start looking for someone who I can train to replace me. If I don't have a ready candidate to present to my boss, he'll never promote me!
I'm secure enough in my skills not to view this hypothetical understudy as a threat. When that next opportunity presents itself, it is wise to be ready to grab it.
I also don't like the idea of leaving one's old group in the lurch. It isn't good politics to burn your bridges.
- R